The dollar held near a three-year low versus a basket of currencies on Friday, poised for a fifth week of falls and its longest losing streak since May 2015 as worries over a possible US government shutdown weighed. On Thursday, the US House of Representatives passed a bill to fund government operations through to February 16 and avoid agency shutdowns from Saturday when existing allocations expire. The bill has yet to be approved by the Senate, where it faces an uncertain future.
"At the start of the week, it was an outside risk. Now it's a real risk," Vassili Serebriakov, currency strategist at Credit Agricole in New York, said of a government shutdown. The greenback held above Wednesday's lows against a group of major currencies on a trade-weighted basis.
It touched the lowest level since December 2014 this week, with investors selling on the view that more central banks will join the Federal Reserve in raising interest rates, after years of ultra-loose policy adopted to combat the 2008 global financial crisis and subsequent recessions. At 11:10 am/16:10 GMT, the trade-weighted dollar index was up 0.06 percent at 90.590.
The euro was down 0.07 percent at $1.2228, near a three-year high of $1.2323 touched on Wednesday. The common currency was on track to book a fifth straight week of gains in advance of next Thursday's European Central Bank meeting. The dollar was down 0.42 percent at 110.62 yen, with its rebound from Wednesday's four-month low of 110.19 yen already fading even as benchmark US 10-year yield rose to the highest level since September 2014.
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